


Claire de Lune

by Weresnake



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Suicidal Ideation, thing stab in foot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 16:08:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18285695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weresnake/pseuds/Weresnake
Summary: Five has been traversing the dead wasteland for far too long. Just as he adjusts to being the sole human left on Earth, the illusion folds and the depression of being truly alone sets in. In despair, he questions why he bothers keeping himself alive if there's nothing else to live for.Then, he finds his answer.----This was made as a dive into Fives character and a scene playing in my head while at work as the music came on from my phones shuffle.





	Claire de Lune

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to the TUA discord, i appreciate the support that helped motivated me to make this.

Winter ended this year. The last dewdrops of melted snow evaporated under the now strong rays of the spring sun. But unlike any ordinary spring no flowers bloomed, and no animals emerged from hibernation.  
  
The landscape was still as dead as the day the apocalypse started.  
The rattling of some wagon echoed from the dusty skeletons of once buildings and two painted eyes watched vacantly at the passing rusted cars. There was also a light humming coming from the person pulling the wagon. Some tune he couldn’t remember, just a somber piano playing in an empty room. The name was just at the tip of his tongue, but he didn’t think he would ever find the answer. The last radio station was hours back.  
  
“Do you know classical music Dolores?” He asks, turning his head to his quiet companion.  
  
She stares back, turning to him from the jostling of the wagon.  
  
“What do you mean you don’t know? The song I’m thinking of is one of those songs that only has one musician. I think its one of the more iconic ones.” He looks back at the horizon.  
  
“It’s one of those songs where you want to cry out to the empty world the piano plays in.”  
  
There’s a lull in his thinking. The music ending as the silence of this husk of a world sets in. Along with shadows of long dead people, huddled in corners and propped against walls. He sees a silhouette of a girl midjump with the cord of her jump rope suspended below her. There was a growing pain in his chest, a pressure that felt like a boulder resting there. He almost forgot for a second the mannequin was still sitting in the wagon that felt more unalive then the shadows of people vaporized when the moon fell.  
  
“Nevermind. I don’t want to know the songs name.”  
  
The wispy white clouds parted for the sun and his face immediately felt the warm rays kiss his skin. He kept trudging on, song now implanted firmly in his brain. The haunting, inescapable tune.  
  
Some selfish part of his bitter soul wanted them with him, sharing this hell with him because at least they’d be together experiencing this. Was it something too cruel to ask? He doesn’t know anymore.  
  
He just wants someone to talk back.  
  
Talking to Dolores helped put it off, she knew him better than anyone now. Not one of his siblings, or mother knew the pain he experienced now. Dolores never asked who he was before he jumped and he appreciated that. She made his heart swell when they would hold onto each other late at night. The inky darkness draped over the broken world while more stars then he could ever count glittered over their heads.  
  
Later in the day, he felt the telltale buckling of his legs from walking far too long so he huddles by his cart. Looking through his trash, he searches for something to eat but nothing really looks appetizing anymore. Ramen packets on top of musty cans stashed with beans and rice he would need to prepare ahead of time to consume. He didn’t even feel hunger anymore, just the same monotony of this dull world. Some days he would sleep through, partly hoping he’d just hibernate until the earth finally healed, but also because he couldn’t face the present.  
  
More of him slowly started to pray he would just pass away in his sleep instead of dying of infections like the ones he almost perished from. It started as some choice words he screamed into the empty sky after nearly breaking his foot on some unstable rubble. Then, it boiled and stewed. He would catch himself musing over why he still obsessed over stories or music made by the dead. Nothing mattered anymore in this void, for everything that mattered left with the descent of the moon. Then, as he traveled, started to plan what death would be best. Drowning? Falling? Hanging?  
  
Drinking the last of his water, he looked back at Dolores. “I don’t think….” He gives a long inhale and closes his eyes, grateful for her patience.  
  
“I don’t think… I want to live here anymore.”  
  
He opens his eyes slowly, searching for any emotion. “I don’t want to leave you alone but I just-“ His throat begins closing up. “I miss my family!”  
  
A slow breeze passed between them.  
  
“I can’t live like this even more!” The volume of his voice goes higher, he feels himself almost slip into hysterics.  
  
“What am I even living for? To prove a point, to nothing?!?” He throws a rock as far as he can, smashing a window. “Out of spite!?! But spiting who anymore? EVERYONES DEAD.”  
  
Then, another pause. “You’re not even alive. You’re just a band-aid, a cast for a broken arm.” Tears well up. “but you couldn’t even succeed in that, could you?”  
  
He gets up in a flurry of rage and storms off somewhere, anywhere from the wagon full of trash and the plastic woman.  
  
The questions still ringed in his ears as white-hot tears streamed down his face. His tattered boots hit the sand of a damp shore. It was a pretty beach with plush yellow sand and walls of all kinds of bones that washed up. He rips his shoes off and stomps further towards the ocean until he cries out in pain.  
  
Looking down at the source, he sees a sliver of porcelain buried in his foot. Red blood welling up from where it was embedded. He collapses to the ground, the salty water pooling just at his hips as he loses the last of his self-control, giving into hysterically screaming whatever he could muster. What could he have possibly don’t to deserve this. His existence, his trapped soul in a comatose future, everything.  
  
Then, as he’s going about to go hoarse, the tune he had stuck in his head begins looping back. Soft keys picking up the pace and growing in volume to match his own agony. As his body shook with each sob, he cradled his head in his hands and whimpered. The sun sat on the horizon of endless ocean, the sky was being painted a warm orange. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches movement. A silver tail swishing the water and two black eyes staring back. His next shuddering breath caught in his throat. Like the grace of each note playing, a small grey shape swam past him.  
  
Then another.  
  
Time seems to slow as the sight unfolds. He looks up and sees as far as his eyes could make out the school of the small sleek sharks surrounding him. Each looking like a sliver of the long gone moon and circling around him. Five reaches out a trembling hand to touch one and it pulls away in one fluid motion.  
  
“Sorry,” he tries to whisper in a broken voice.  
  
His foot throbs as it gushes more blood into the still water but he pays it no mind as now the smooth disks of stingrays join the dance. The music swells from the sheer number of them all and one of the tinier, scarred stingrays swim up against his lap, dark eyes shining in the salty brine. Again, he reaches his hand out to meet its smooth skin and it pushes back against his touch. His jaw goes slack as it wiggles its side fans and the marine life surrounding them both still hasn’t ceased in its dance.  
  
He wanted to cry more, but he couldn’t. His soul ached as he realized deep down maybe the earth isn’t as dead as he believed. His fingers tried gripping the slippery skin of the stingray as it pulled away, but to no avail. As silently as they came, they started to swim farther where he couldn’t see them anymore.  
  
The one he petted took up the rear and, without looking back, vanished with the rest.  
  
Now a different kind of silence accompanied him. It wasn’t lonely or anguished.  
  
It felt hopeful, like a quiet promise between the survivors.  
  
Find home again, keep living.  
  



End file.
